


Then reached the caverns measureless to man

by Yenneffer



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Adventure, Bird-Loki, Brothers Till The End (But Whose?), Family, Gen, Gen Fic, Pre-Movie, Pre-Thor (2011), Shapeshifting, Sibling Rivalry, Thor's Questing, Tricks and Treats, Young Norse Gods Have Issues, travelling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-23
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-15 22:12:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/854578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yenneffer/pseuds/Yenneffer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Depicts Bird-Loki's flight from Asgard and his brother's quest to find him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

_“Five miles meandering with a mazy motion_

_Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,_

_Then reached the caverns measureless to man,_

_And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean...”_

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, _Kubla Khan_

 

The hawk’s shrill cry cuts through the clear air with knife-sharp precision. The day is young here in the mountains.

There is a trick involved in shape-shifting, a very easy, very essential trick. You must let go completely, forget who and what you are and become it, this shape. Bird-Loki has very different desires and wants than Aesir-Loki.

Bird-Loki does not care about anything but the wind under its wings and the prey it eats. It is prideless and neutral, family-less and apolitical, with no purpose in its mind but the branch to perch on and a warm-bloodied body to dive upon.

So every now and then Loki loses his mind and soars in the skies of Asgard, above her golden domes and greening plains and the wild streams running down her land like angry welts made by tears. He loses his mind and purposely forgets himself in order to just be.

Uncomplicated. Free. Unbound. Feisty. Uncultured. Itself.

I will tell you a story of Bird-Loki, who forgot.

 

It begins with anger, as many things in those hallowed halls are wont to. The golden domes have silently stood witness to outbursts of Odin, whose words rattled the foundations of the earth itself; of Thor, who rained his temper on the gilded spires; of petty nobles who squabbled among themselves like a pack of wolves with teeth too rotten to bite off limbs but capable of spreading disease onto others; even of the even-tempered Frigga, who, once aroused from her sweet placidity, was slow to cool off, her ire scalding those who had incurred her displeasure.

Loki’s anger was a double-edged sword, a finely shined tool. He was incensed easily, as easily as his brother, but unlike Thor, he didn’t burst with it immediately only to return to his sunny disposition. Nay, Loki simmered with cold rage, Loki waited; until a time came when he took his revenge upon those who had slighted him (Loki, as you may have heard, puts much stock in words; they weigh on him more heavily than sticks and stones, how he is a laughing stock of Asgard, Her Trickster, Her Jester), in turn igniting their anger.

A case in point: their cousin Balder the Favourite, who had arrived to spend a few summers in the palace; Thor’s new best friend, comrade and _brother_ -in-arms. Loki had had to accommodate and compress his person once before, when the Thor White and the Four Dwarfs became a tightly-knit unit. Now Balder took what little _scraps_ he had left. That, Loki decided, was unacceptable.

Besides, the fool was grating on Loki’s every nerve. He was laughing at him, taunting him, interrupting him when he sat enclosed in the grand library, surrounded by heavy tomes filled with magic, books that never contained the same information on re-opening so that if you lost your place or closed them by accident, you’d never read what you’d begun; and Balder was everywhere, placing his hands upon Loki’s person and his books and closing them and making insipid queries; in short, he was being a bother, a thorn in Loki’s sensitive side.

When he teased him in front of Odin, implying that Loki was weak, that Loki used womanly wiles, and grinning unabashedly at him, Loki’s thinly-leashed control snapped.

He took his revenge upon Thor’s new favourite person, Balder the Beloved Companion. And later Loki was going to pay (didn’t he always, though?). He prepared a dose of humiliation, doused it with disgust, scented it with malice, boiled and left to simmer.

Because Balder was truly beautiful, and the beautiful were uncaring of those less fortunate: there was a maiden who fancied him, a lady of the most toad-like complexion and possessed of a mulish disposition. She courted him like a dog with a bone, and he hightailed it like an affright bitch, Balder the Brave did.

He bound Balder the Beautiful to Alora the Ugly in a sacred bond of matrimony. Of course, Balder wasn’t quite himself when this joyful (for some) yet unexpected (for all) event happened. His consciousness had been floating, dowsed in a hard sleep induced by Loki’s magical craft, awakened just in time to end the kiss bestowed by his new bride, in his wedding bed on the morning after the wedding night. The deed was complete, there was no going back from this point. Fruitless were Balder’s protestations, in vain did he entreat for the marriage to be dissolved. By the letter of the law, the maiden had been taken in her husband’s bed, and that was that. The annulment would impugn the bride’s honour.

So Balder steeped in despair of the wedded bliss, and oftentimes went to his good friend Thor to bemoan the misfortune that had befallen him.

The two companions had no proof, but there was no doubt in the Thunderer’s mind as to who was responsible. Asgard had but one Trickster, whose renown both preceded him and made all in his company wary, and followed in his swift footsteps in the form of angry bellows and promises of retribution.

This time Loki had cost Thor his favoured friend, as Balder was required to return with his new wife to his estates in the east to settle down and begin a new chapter in his young life. The young Prince stormed through the intricate passageways, looking for his elusive brother to deliver a sound thrashing to his foxy person. Did Loki sense him? Did he feel the floor vibrating as the elder of the gods marched through their home like he was ready to wage war? Did he see the fumes of rage heralding his brother’s approach?

We know not; yet it is certain that the young mischief-maker took to the skies, spearing the dark of the stormy clouds that amassed outside with his tawny wings. The hawk’s cry was all that reached Thor’s ears as he stood on the majestic balcony, and the golden Prince searched the firmament for his bird-brother with his keen eyes. But the skies were emptied, hidden away in fear as the ominous rumble of thunder sounded over their heads.

 


	2. Chapter 1.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this doesn't mean much, but I am truly sorry. Real life happened, and then writing block, and then I had to make sure I actually know where this story is going before I posted anything.
> 
> Without further ado, here is chapter 1. Chapter 2 will hopefully be uploaded later this week, but I won't make any promises since it's just asking for trouble.

The hawk does not count hours or days; it doesn’t know how long it’s been flying away (away from what? what danger did it sense lurking behind that spurred it on, the hasty beat of its wings its only company?).

But it has been flying for a long time.

Finally, even its instinct-induced flight has to come to a halt; the so-far inexhaustible beating of its wings against the windy tantrums that the skies threw against its feathers began to slow, and the sharp-beaked head lowered when painful tiredness hit its light body like a hammer to the chest (how does it know this feeling? it does not know, aware only that it is something to escape and avoid, and so it does). Sharp eyes scan the greenery below, the woods stretching its twig-arms as far as the bird can see, and it sees far ahead, the still-swift beating of its wings always carrying it onwards. (It does not, for some reason other than its instinctual recoil of fear, look back.)

A snap of thin wood and a shriek of a land-creature has the arrow-shaped hawk plummeting from the high air to sink talons in a warm prey. The bloodied rodent twitches madly, once, before the bird tightens its hold and stabs at it with its beak, the hunger a craving beast hammering at its chest.

With its hunger satisfied, the bird feels a burning, alien urgency to fly on. These woods do not feel safe, its inhabitants wary of a lurking danger that is more than natural to all forest creatures. This is more than a predator-and-prey dance of life, and the air stinks of fear, unnatural and foreign.

But the hawk is tired, the mad flight from the thunder-filled air and the burning in his (its) chest have sapped its (his?) energy. It needs to rest, and so it does.

It finds a twig to perch on, obscured by rich and heavy leaves of the mother tree, huge and steady and safe.

 

Thor’s gaze follows after a buzzing insect as it explores the space of the royal golden-red chamber, as it flies towards the window left open to invite the fresh breeze inside; the Prince’s eyes stop, arrested, on what he can see of the outside of his temporary prison. He sighs, his mood darkening, and with effort forces his attention back to the papers he has been perusing for the better part of the morning, oftentimes interrupting himself as his thoughts drifted.

Unsurprisingly, since it was a fine day for training and making merry. Thor failed utterly to find enjoyment in the stack of papers that piled like an untameable mountaintop in front of him, nor in the dry-as-dust reports that were contained within those never-ending pages.

But Odin had ordered Thor to read the reports and sent him to his chambers as if he were a misbehaving child.

And Thor went, like a scolded boy, with resentment simmering in his chest. It distracted him even now, as his whole being yearned for adventure and physicality of muscles burning from exercise, his blood exhilarated as it was pumped through his veins.

Thor is bored.

Scowling, he forcefully wrenches his thoughts away from their wandering path and brings them to heel; to heed his interminable task. Unrest in a village situated at the foot of the Grey Mountains. Supplies needed at various guard posts. Lack of hunting game in the western territories and the resulting starvation. Supplies needed again. A band of thieves in the woods by the Erda River. A skirmish between neighbours rooted in a years-long land dispute. A coming negotiations with an ambassador from Alfheim. Said ambassador’s visit to plan.

There is an unrelenting itch at the back of his head, a restlessness that forbids him to stay here, seated and sluggish, buried in papers like an old crone unfit for glory. He surrenders to it gratefully and pushes away from the desk.

He strides with purpose through the vast corridors, encountering no one save for an occasional guard or a secretive pair of lovers, secluded in an alcove near the Music Hall, the rich overhung tapestries hiding from prying eyes the two golden heads, both bent and intent on each other. They startle away when Thor walks past them, his gait heavy and his chuckle amused as he good-naturedly waves away their curtsies.

He stops by a balcony when he spies his Mother’s turned back. She is quiet in her solitude, her arms resting on a sun-warmed marble balustrade, seemingly lost in deep thought. Thor’s lips stretch in an expression of cheerful delight, he approaches her with his hand lifted to let it fall lightly on her shoulder. He squeezes it lightly in welcome.

“Restless already, my son?” Frigga raises her own hand to pat Thor’s in reassurance.

“You know, Mother, that there is little joy for me in such menial tasks as Father bid me do today. What glory is there to be found among this dusty and dull words?”

“It may not be joyful. But nevertheless there is a feeling of a duty well-performed, a task achieved, that you will be surprised to find – if you allow yourself to notice it. Is that what troubles you?”

Her steady gaze unnerves him. Thor feels inadequate, as if he were missing words his Mother is willing him to say. But what is this correct answer, he does not know. He furrows his brow, uncertain.

“I think the reports should not trouble me – they are all common occurrences. I doubt there is a reason for us to worry.”

“Yet you are not content.”

“I wish Father hasn’t forbidden me to ride out on any and all adventures. These walls are stifling me, Mother! The freedom awarded me feels more like a leash. The palace, the training grounds, the city and the surrounding fields – this is the extent of movement granted me.”

“You know why, Thor. Your Father needs you.”

“To do what? Read reports? He has his lesser advisors to perform such tasks!”

“That is enough, Thor,” Frigga levels a dark look his way that quells his protests. She waits a moment to be certain he is listening instead of fuming inwardly and continues:

“You are a Prince, my son, and you have duties here, in your home. You will be allowed to continue your quests. Later. For now... Thor, Loki has been gone for a long time, and we are not sure when he will be back. Asgard cannot be deprived of both of its Princes for an extended and unspecified period of time.”

“But Loki and I have been on numerous quests together! This makes little sense, Mother. And why should I be confined whilst he flees Norns know where! The coward he is, this flight of fancy may last a long time yet!” The angry words barely leave his mouth when Frigga whirls on him, her coiled hair whipping from the suddenness of the movement.

“You will cease this disrespectful speech!”

“I didn’t mean disrespect! But you know he...”

“Not one word, Thor!” She raises her hand in warning. Slowly, he subsides, and she lets it fall onto his chest.

“I worry, Thor...” she admits reluctantly, her thus-far sharp gaze turning inwards, and Thor feels her staring past him, as if his muscular figure was insubstantial, a mere phantom. “He is not a child anymore, but the manner in which he has left us... in the past he would return after a few days, weeks at most, when the immediate fire from his mischief had been dosed down. Not so this time. Your Father’s ravens returned with no news of him, and the foreign shape makes him hard to find for Heimdall.”

“I could go fetch him home, Mother, so that you could stop worrying so,” Thor offers.

“And you would find him how, my brave warrior? This will not be resolved by your hunting skills, son. Loki’s wings have surely carried him far away from here.”

“Knowing him, he may be watching us even now from behind some pillar,” Thor mutters disagreeably, knowing well his brother’s penchant for irony. It would please the Trickster well to see them frantic, looking for him, while he hides nearby.

 

A strike and a grunt. Parry, thrust. No, do not over-balance. Watch your step. Good, now parry and press on. Use your advantages for your win, and use their disadvantages for their loss.

“Halt!” The swordmaster cries and the clashing swords freeze, mid-move, and Thor grins a bloody grin at Sif across the crossed steel.

“An excellent match, my friend,” he says, the bloodlust still pumping through his veins. He knows she can take it; expecting any less would be an affront to her pride and prowess, to the calculating look in her eyes that passes behind the bloodlust of her own.

“A re-match later?” Sif asks as she sheathes her weapon, her labouring breath calming at a practised pace.

“Aye, Sif. A win sounds better to me than a forced draw, anyway. I will meet you here at sunset.”

“A win bout sounds better to me, too, so you shall have to go without, Thor!” she calls cheerfully after his retreating back. Thor doesn’t say anything, just tosses his head back to let go of the laugh that is building in his chest, and the sound bursts free and he waves farewell to Lady Sif.

 

Thor’s white charger tugs restlessly at the bit, testing the rider’s resolve. The ground is good and hard beneath its hooves, and its pleasure and desire would be to storm forward, break into a run so frenzied and mad that all living creatures would flee before the sound of its hoofbeats – to charge into a war, whereat it and its rider will proceed to win.

Thor keeps his hand steady, not letting the horse have a free rein. The experienced hunter knows that the path is too narrow and treacherous for a galloping horse – a string of four beasts hungry for a hunt and chase would be exhilarating but unwise, and that is even without taking into consideration Fandral’s restive stallion, newly broken and still given to sudden bursts of temper. All manner of prey would elude them, too, should they abandon the quiet way.

Slowly forward it was, then. No matter how much his spirit longed for speed and grew weary of caution.

He calls halt and his companions – just the Warriors Three this time, Sif having been assigned to lead a patrol to the northern parts of the Kingdom – gather around Thor, who points to a set of tracks, half-hidden under the wind-tossed leaves.

Hogun climbs off his roan steed with a soft grunt and kneels down to examine the ground.

“Hard to say, but my guess is these are two-three hours old, at most,” he tells the rest, climbing back into the saddle.

“And you can guess that how, pray tell, friend? Based on the wind pattern, presumably?” Fandral replies with a chuckle. “There has been no rain recently, the tracks could have been left in the bloody hours of the morning!”

“Ah, I see our dashing friend is still smarting from the yester eve’s rejection!” booms Thor’s voice, jaunty and smug. “Peace, Fandral. There will be other flowers to pick; I promise I will leave some of them to you less fortunate ones!”

“Oh please; the lady flocked to your title like a true-born harpy. I am far more fortunate in garnering fair attention on the merit of my own... prowess, if you take my meaning,” says Fandral haughtily.

“I rather do, friend! Yet the lady seemed rather pleased by my own prowess, and made no mention of any titles once we’ve reached the bedchambers. Jealousy ill becomes the Dashing Fandral.” Thor’s grin reaches epic proportions at the sour look on his companion’s face.

“You both are fools,” declares Volstagg as the threesome rides on after Hogun, who took point on the narrow track, bending down on his horse’s back to peer at the ground and scanning carefully the foliage surrounding the group on both sides. “Mark my words, the way you talk about your adventures, soon there will be no maiden in all of Asgard who won’t scoff at you for approaching her, and the only prowess you two will experience will be getting your mouths slapped off your faces by feminine dainty hands. It is as if you knew nothing of their fairer nature!” Volstagg laughs at his own prediction.

“Hogun, will you not bet with me on how long it will take for my words to come true?” The red-bearded man calls ahead to their grim scout.

“There is little point; Fandral is as likely to get slapped on a daily basis as not to. And Thor has too gullible a face to hold any lady’s wrath long enough for her to follow the intent. They might approach him to offer angry words, and instead will end up kissing him in a corner,” Hogun replies.

“Now, friends!” laughs Thor at their antics, “you make me sound as promiscuous as Fandral while in truth I am as fastidious as Loki!”

“Oh, are you, now?” Fandral joins in their mocking. “How so, Prince?”

“Well, just as my brother, I don’t take every maiden who looks at me coyly to my bed; those I don’t like I steer your way, Fandral!”

All laugh at Fandral’s angry sputtering.

But in a moment’s time, everything is silent again, their banter eased and exchanged for soft breaths. The ground turns muddy and soft under the horses’ hooves, their weights sinking into it on every step they take. Then Hogun raises his hand to stall the three following him. Volstagg and Fandral stay back so they do not mess with the tracks, but Thor urges his horse to reach Hogun’s side. He readies himself to dismount to study the ground, but upon coming closer he sees there is little need for it: from the overhanging trees on the left side of the path come another tracks, of a big and heavy animal, that tear into the ones they have been following. What lies beneath his horse’s hooves is not a battle but swift and utter defeat: their prey has been dragged into the forest by its attacker.

Thor huffs out a breath. It seems they won’t return with an aedeer, with its tasty meat and decorative horn. Yet the hunting party was an excuse to get away from the palace and its stifling air. Hunting the beast that has so easily managed to overpower a usually impressively-horned aedeer would be a sufficient outcome.

“The forest is not too dense; we should be able to travel on horses – the beast has too much of a headstart for us to catch it on foot,” Thor murmurs.

Hogun nods and heels his mount off the path, again acting as the group’s tracker, and Thor waves their companions to follow as he urges his horse after the grim warrior.

The following journey is ardours and punctured by watchful silence. The high canopy grows thicker as the hours pass on, and the hunters are aware of the soon-to-be encroaching darkness. They did not plan to stay overnight, but are nonetheless not worried by the prospect, well used as they are to long travels in the wilderness spent in each other’s company. They would prefer to complete the hunt before nightfall, yes, but they will not spill tears over any additional hardships. Save perhaps...

“I knew I should have taken more provisions for this fool-approved venture,” Volstagg grumbles to himself as he tears into a meat-stuffed sandwich. Fandral muffles a chuckle into his hand, but doesn’t reply. It was wiser to let the hungry beast eat in peace. At least while there was still food in their packs.

Soon it grew too dark to see the tracks they were following. They had been expecting to catch up to their game soon, but it seemed the beast had kept a steady pace throughout the day, and the distance between it and Thor and the Warriors Three remained unchanged.

Thor was secretly glad for it. He would cherish a night away from his duties. It was not like the reports could not wait for his return. But as he had not shared this bit of wisdom with either of his parents prior to his setting out, it was better that his return should be delayed.

They found a clearing just large enough for the warriors and their horses and with practise everyone attended to their individual duties while setting up camp. Wood collected, horses tethered, fire lit and what little food they had prepared, and they were ready for the night.

“Too bad Sif could not come,” Fandral remarked idly, stretching on his back by the fire, his head pillowed on his arms.

“You know that she always takes leading patrols very seriously. Unlike some of us.” Thor grinned and stabbed Fandral lightly on a stomach with a short stick. The other blond yelled in indignation and rose to launch himself at the laughing Prince. Soon both Volstagg and Hogun joined their impromptu tussle, the group’s laughter growing in force and volume until it was just a tad too loud, their cheerful voices carrying well in the otherwise dead silent woods, for all living creatures knew fear of the night and what comes under its shadows.

News travels fast and far, even in the animal kingdom.

 

Perched high on a massive branch of a hardy oak, the bird tilts its head as it observes the loud cacophony of life. The herd of two-legs, it muses, is markedly stupid; the danger they invite into their midst by staying in one place for long stretches of time is only heightened by the noise they make (‘tis an invitation to feed, to feast, to gorge beasty teeth on their warm, bloodied meat; and for a moment the hawk feels its plumy chest expand, alien, belonging to something larger than it, and there is a memory of long fangs tearing into flesh not unlike its beak does, and the familiarity grounds it on its perch high above ground) and the lack of sentry to warn their herd-mates of the coming danger.

How, when all of this forest draws careful breaths as to not intrude on the foe that stalks this piece of land, how can they make noise/stay in one place/unguarded? Loki ruffles his feathers, thinking of oafish yellowmans, two-legged brute beasts with all their teeth and claws and beaks (he does not, for now, remember the name for what it has in mind) flying away from them to leave them defenceless against the enemies who lurk near while they wait for the flying thing to return to them instead of flying towards it themselves. Loki does not understand two-legs.

The hawk’s eye catches sight of a piece of prey forgotten by the two-legs, stretches its wings and jumps down to snatch it before something else notices. One of the two-legs sees it and yells, but it already has the meat safely in its beak as it rises to fly away from stupid commotion-makers.


End file.
